Yet there are concerns the needs of people with disability are overlooked or not fully incorporated into disaster planning and mitigation.

Challenges increase during times of disaster

As cyclone and flood-affected communities today mark the six-month anniversary of Tropical Cyclone Debbie, a James Cook University researcher has visited cyclone-affected regions to speak to people with a disability.

Jenny Quaill said impairments that could be managed during times of normality could become aggravated during natural disasters.

"They might have difficulty with mobility, they may have issues with communication and language, they may have vision impairment," she said.

"All these things together can make it much harder to prepare for a cyclone and keep yourself safe during the cyclone, and certainly to recover afterward.

"People that need to evacuate to a shelter during a cyclone may not have their needs met when they're in the shelter.

"If you rely on a carer to help you … and your carer needs to look after their own self and their own family, their own property, during a cyclone, that might mean that someone with a disability doesn't have that care and support, and … that could be quite terrifying."

In the aftermath of the cyclone, changes in routine as well as impacts on the environment may make it difficult for people to carry on with everyday life.

"Trees are down, roads are damaged, if you normally use your wheelchair and you can push yourself along a pathway to your doctor's surgery, it may not be accessible," Ms Quaill said.

"That's going to impact on their access to medical care, to medications, but certainly just the basics like getting to the shop to get the items that you need to keep yourself fed and watered, the challenges are certainly greater for people with disability."

Electricity essential

Mackay man Luke Simmons has been in a wheelchair since 2003 after a swimming pool accident left him a quadriplegic.

"During the cyclone I was quite lucky. I had a good support service and I was able to get support right through the whole thing," he said.

While most people in the cyclone-affected area lost power, Mr Simmons was lucky.

"Luckily I didn't lose power or any of those things so I was one of the more fortunate ones. That made a big difference because if I didn't have power I don't know how I would have got on," he said.

"I need electricity for charging my wheelchairs and my roof hoist.

"If I had lost power I might have had to stay in bed if my hoist didn't work, or probably go without using my wheelchair for a few days.

"With my condition I can't control my body temperature, so if I was to have lost power [when] they had the hot days afterwards, I would've had to try to find somewhere with air conditioning to try to escape the heat."

Elderly residents isolated

John Pickup, 86, lives alone in Mackay and said the current disaster notification system did not take the needs of elderly residents into account.

"The authorities were texting everybody and saying please evacuate, [but] what has happened is that most of the people who are elderly or frail do not have smart phones, do not receive text messages," he said.

"In my own case I have a phone, it will receive text messages, but the only problem is I have macular degeneration which means I can't read the text."

Mr Pickup does not have any family in the area, but was lucky to have a neighbour looking out for his safety.

"After the cyclone I spoke to my cleaning lady and she said all the people that our cleaning service are helping, and these are elderly people, they said 'We just felt absolutely deserted and abandoned, we are sitting in our houses, we had absolutely no help, and we didn't know what was happening'," he said.

"I propose that there should be a register set up by the authorities which registers the name of the person, their physical condition, whether they have any means of transport, and if so where are the people they can be moved to."